


Topiary

by Arlzureinne_Karale



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, secretenstars2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 22:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13040916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlzureinne_Karale/pseuds/Arlzureinne_Karale
Summary: On the edge of eventide, the king blessed her with a ring of light.





	Topiary

**Author's Note:**

> Ensemble Stars! belong to Happy Element, this oneshot is dedicated for #SecretEnstars2017. Happy holiday everyone!

The staff agreed to put out Christmas trees inside the school starting from this year—they have the outline; rehearsal room, cafeteria, several hallway corners, gymnasium, student council’s office, teacher’s lounge, and on and on, to every spacious room they could think of the slightest.

Yet, they forgot how busy they were when it was approaching the end of December, _especially_ nearing the end of December, for there were so many lives to do and so many things to be taken care of that were far more important than pitching medium-sized, fully decorated, casuarina trees.

Honestly speaking, the trees were actually already put out. The only work left to do was burnishing it with accessories to bring out the Christmas spirit; red and green bells, snow wreath, stars, angels on the top, the usual drill. Some students already talked about putting things and things together, but they never did carry it out because of their practices for the end of the year’s lives.

Which brought her here, walking down the lit up corridor of Yumenosaki with boxes of decorations stacked high on a wheeler used to carry stage’s instruments from place to place on the school ground. The boxes weren’t really heavy, but they were too big for her to carry them by hands.

There were approximately twenty, or maybe even less, Christmas trees scattered around and about in the building that needed to be decorated before tomorrow graced in.

It was nothing Anzu couldn’t manage.

 

* * *

Unlocking the door of rehearsal room, Anzu grappled the wall for a switch, flicking it on.

The sight of a Christmas tree met her eyes, still bare and deserted, void of any shades but darkened green and charred henna, as miserable and colorless as her past self. The brunette slowly ambled forward with her wheeler in tow, the door swung closed behind her with a soft click upon the abandon. Her steps promptly halted when she finally caught a proper sight of the tree.

It was some height away taller than her—uh, oh, did she bring a ladder?

The young producer turned on her heels, rummaging through the closest box she could reach on her wheeler. Various sizes of colorful sphere-shaped trinkets greeted her vision in the first box, glimmered with silvery linings underneath the light; no ladder.

Without ado, Anzu tiptoed to reach the next crate placed on top of the first box: angels and tinkling chimes, no ladder. She moved to the next cardboard: fake mistletoes and white leaves plaited to form small wreaths, no luck either. Creases formed on her forehead while she put the second box down on the floor just by her legs in favor to reach the last one.

She honestly didn’t expect the box to burst open on its own. Fake snow exploded between the lids, creating an illusion of the world outside, cascading slowly when gravity embraced them back. Some landed on her hair, some landed on his hair, some gracefully settled on the floor.

“Fu—ah! That scared me! I thought I was kidnapped and thrown to a dungeon!”

Tsukinaga Leo popped out from the box, how he managed to get there in the first place was beyond Anzu’s thought. But then again, Leo was always a peculiar one—popping here and there, running around and about, with inspirations on his head and guilt brandished on his back.

“Oh! Anzu!” As if sensing her scattered mind, Leo finally realized her presence, literally brightened upon the sight of her. He looked down at her height, eyes the shades of early spring sparked with remnants of sunshine left on the late evening. His smile was so wide, so pure, so genuine, Anzu could see his shattered soul and the little pieces that were left of Tsukinaga Leo.

The brunette brought up her hands, making peace signs on either side of her cheeks on a familiar gesture that Leo always did. The young producer smiled softly, her voice filled with confidence now that she did the gesture every time she met Leo as per the King of Knights’ request: “Uchuu.”

Leo laughed, the sound was akin to a tinkle of summer bells. He brought up his hands and made the same gesture, tilting his head, “Uchuu~!” then followed by a question, as his gaze already strayed away to every place but the tree on the center of the room. His voice curious, and so were his eyes. “What are you doing here? Are you with Sena?”

Anzu raised her eyebrows. Even for Leo, that question seemed a bit too odd. It wasn’t like she was particularly distant with Knights—she was as close with all units as Trickstar, but Izumi Sena was never the first person that popped on people’s mind every time they caught the sight of Anzu.

Or was it?

“Why would I be with Izumi- _san_?” Finally, Anzu voiced her confusion. Rather than Izumi, perhaps it would be more usual for Leo to think that she was with Narukami Arashi or Tsukasa Suou.

“Because he is always worried, that’s what!” Leo grinned, shaking his head rapidly like an energetic dog might do when they were drenched. Fake snow scattered in every direction possible, some of it hell-bent on staying between strands of twilight hair. “Oh, are you decorating the trees?”

The brunette cast a glance at the tree behind her, grasping some decorations from another opened box, as big as her palm. She might as well start now before someone dragged her home. “I am.”

Leo hummed, his stare filled with exuberance, a cup overfilled. Yet, the shadow around the edge of his eyes still loitered. “It’s been a while since I decorated a tree—!” The leader of Knights jumped from his box, Anzu stepped back; already used to his impulsive antics. His attention changed as fast as a hurricane. “Ooh! The melodies are back, bouncing, pouncing!” Leo turned around, groping around his jacket pocket, frantically searching for something.

The fact that Leo fell asleep in a box was forgotten in favor of a more pressing matter.

Anzu stifled a light, fond smile while reaching for a pen tucked in her breast pocket. “There you go.”

Green eyes promptly brightened. Leo reached for the pen in one swift movement. “Thanks!”

Just like that, the storm calmed down. The twilight-haired young man produced papers upon nowhere, a lot of it, letting it fell all over his feet and floors and then sat down. A hum escaped his lips as fingers danced across the surface of ivory; lining it none-too-neatly, scribing notes. Leo wrote compositions as if he was breathing, and Anzu always liked watching him work.

Because through the ink and the murmur voiced at every space of his breath, Anzu could take a peek at Leo’s world—at his kingdom built between ashes and blood, painted with stars and everything he tried to mend with his hands. At the proof that Tsukinaga Leo was a human too.

The brunette could watch Leo some more, but she had a work to do. She shouldn’t waste time, evening marched on, and soon, Anzu was sure it would be night. And someone from Trickstar would come to fetch her home after their practice.

Dragging one of the boxes closer to the tree, the young producer started to attach the ornaments one by one between the branches: a red sphere-like adornment, a green emblazed glass, a figurine of an angel, Anzu reached for a different box to tug out a wreath, tiptoeing to plait it a little higher.

The room was filled with silence, aside from Leo’s continuous hum and the sound of scribbles mingling with his breath. Anzu’s footsteps occasionally filled the black as she rounded the tree, trying to tiptoe higher than the last, somehow ended up to force one of her leg hovering from the ground when she tried to reach _that_ particular branch without losing her balance.

After minutes of questioning if she should try to climb on top of the boxes and realizing it might collapse under her weight, Anzu stepped back to observe her unfinished work, frowning quietly when the top of the tree was still bare from decorations.

Blue eyes glanced at one particular box that was filled with angel figurines and golden stars. She wanted to put at least a star on top of the tree, but it seemed impossible now. Not to mention she didn’t know where the staff put the folded ladder if should she wants to find it now.

Should she leave it just like that?

But it wouldn’t look like a christmas tree, would it? The tree was inside, so she didn’t braid tiny lamps around it like people might do for the trees outside Yumenosaki’s compound. It needed more ornaments to complete the yuletide ambience, and just for this once, Anzu wanted to satisfy herself.

“Look, Anzu!”

The young brunette jumped when a flash of white and green was thrown from behind her shoulder, like a surprise gone wrong. The sound of clear tintinnabulation echoed when the ornaments fastened around the wreath came in contact with each other.

The chaplet fell on top of the tree, one side of it was secured on the branch, another side dragged down because of the weight it bore, and then stopped because the hole wasn’t big enough. It encircled the branches, just some inches from the peak, fake white leaves mingled with the green ones.

“Ooh! This one is silver! We should ask Mikejimama to put it on top!”

Anzu turned upon the voice, Leo was messing with the box of stars and angels. One hand holding a silver star meant to be put on the uppermost of the Christmas tree like he was holding a trophy. The leader of Knights cradled it in his arms then placed it just beside the box, humming.

“Leo- _san_ ,” the quiet young producer slowly called, waiting as Leo turned to her, all smiles and hidden demise. Blue eyes glanced at the garland stuck on the tree, then back at the older juvenile in front of him. “Did you attach the ornaments around the wreath?”

The twilight-haired teen nodded, putting another loop of fake leaves on his arms. “It’s easier isn’t it?” His gaze slightly softened as he continued, filled with storge. “Ruka can’t reach the higher parts, either, and it’ll be dangerous for her to climb places, so I taught her about this!”

He rummaged through the box for another while, dragging out too many wreaths for Anzu to count only with her gaze. On the end of his fingertips, a scissors was hooked. And the young producer wondered whether she should be worried about Leo having access to sharp blades.

It wasn’t like Leo wouldn’t understand the danger, but he was too careless.

“See, you can cut the wreath and tie it with another, so it’s longer,” while he spoke so, the King of Knights demonstrated his words, skillfully tying the chaplets together with a ribbon and some decorations. When he was done, he presented it to Anzu a second before he threw it to the tree.

Like the first one, it was secured on the branches inches after the first one, then stopped again because the hole wasn’t big enough. The two of it together reminded Anzu of some kind of toy that stacked on top of another, only the tree was obviously bigger than the toy.

Leo patted his chest, proudly. His gesture was still graceful, like the king he was. “If you put it under the first one, then another one, and another one, it’ll look like rings of light, wahahaha~!”

The brunette stared at Leo’s handiwork with a wonder.

Sure it looked slightly uncanny, with too many ornaments Leo put on around the garland, but not all things peculiar mean bad, wasn’t it? All people in Yumenosaki wasn’t exactly someone you would see blending in the crowd, they had quirks and all shades of colors bursting in their steps.

“Do you want to make it?” Leo’s voice brought Anzu back to the world in hand. Green eyes peeked up, intrigue dripped between the words rumbling out from the king’s throat.

Nodding, the young producer sat in front of Leo. Blue eyes never strayed from the way nimble fingers work quickly but carefully, dancing around different medium. Leo was still humming even as he wasn’t working on his composition, and Anzu wondered if that was his tendency.

After another demonstration, the brunette was set to the work. It wasn’t easy to cut the wreath, for it wasn’t made from a perfect material to cut through, but she still managed. Anzu let Leo throw her creation to the tree with perfect accuracy; her focus started to go astray.

It was when she worked on her fifth garland when Leo snapped her awake again.

“Anzu!”

Startled, the only girl in Yumenosaki looked up to Leo’s way.

The leader of the Knights smiled, lopsided. He reached to Anzu’s way, putting a garland on her head, made of white leaves and snowflakes hanging from either side of it, creating an image of a halo. Strands of stray thread tickled the brunette’s skin. Leo backed off a moment after.

The young girl could see how broken Leo was from their distance; how shattered he was from his eyes. Void of light and everything good, filled with things beyond saved and things too far to reach. Leo was snapped into pieces, not even grappling to save himself because it was futile to even try.

Nonetheless, Anzu never saw a smile so beautiful.

“Ring of light on your head.”

Anzu smiled. She felt like she was endowed with divine favor by a king.

And for a peasant for her, for someone who was pushed to the shadow, for someone who lost her sun and moon and stars and her entire universe before finding it in Yumenosaki bit by bit, there was nothing more quite identical to a blessing like this.

**.**

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, long time no see!
> 
> As you can see, I'm joining a secret Santa again, and it's my first time writing Anzu, I hope I got her characteristics right. It's really tough since I only got Anzu's personality from the novel, and heavily depended on the wiki for her physical descriptions (blue eyes, brown hair, average height, and kinda-not-too-important-cup-size), but it's really fun to finally write my favorite Anzu pairing apart from IzuAn!
> 
> Oh yeah, about the wreaths, it's inspired by a big wreath on the wall of a department store close to my school. My immediate thought was honestly, "Wow, you can put that on a tree." Although Leo's version obviously isn't that big.
> 
> Big thanks to Freyyyy for proofreading it, and for Yuuriyane, I hope you enjoyed this!
> 
> Last, sorry for any grammar mistakes, thank you for reading~!


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